Master's Journey: Tales to Astound! #3
Added 2019-01-26 05:42:10 +0000 UTCAuthor's Note: Onward! Last selection was 3) Introduce, so on we go from there!
[story]
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“I mean no harm,” you say, just hearing your own thick, lilting accent for the first time since your awakening. Your free hand held forward, you slowly lower your blade down to your side, but do not release it -- should any of the three make a rush for their own weapons, you will need to use yours quickly or be outmatched.
The three glance toward each other cautiously, and you take the moment to get a better look at each of them. The man is tall and well-built, his long arms and muscular shoulders contrasting against his long torso. Fiery orange hair cropped close at the sides and an unruly beard flank what appears to be a well-meaning face, with pale eyes and a short nose.
The first of the two women you glance to is tall as well, definitely taller than you if not quite so much as her male companion, and the tight-fitting brown beast-hide she wears shows her body as graceful, but soft. Her hair is worn in loose waves around her shoulders, with a topknot tied at the back of her head, and is the color of pale candlelight, a few shades brighter than the man’s. Her face is as gentle as her body, a soft oval that seems far more concerned to see you than you are of her. She is contrasted most sharply of all, however, by the other woman in the group.
The third member of the group was... intimidating. Phyragian, like her companions, the woman sits crouched beside the campfire and continues to stare into it, ignoring you and seemingly concerned. Clad in only narrow segments of sun-bleached leather that bind around her hips and smaller bust, much of her agile, athletic figure can be seen -- along with the labyrinth of black tattoos that covers it. The designs range from coils and patterns of ink, to small symbols and images, dotted around or woven between the greater matrix of subcutaneous paint. Dark kohl makeup around piercing blue eyes accents her strikingly angular features, her blood-red hair worn straight and undecorated until just past her shoulders. Be she a warrior or some kind of bloodthirsty priestess, you cannot tell, but you know she is different from her friends.
“You’re... kaltish, are ya not?” the light-haired woman says cautiously, her eyes turning down to your cutlass, then back up to you. “Don’t get many of your kind this far south. You a merchant, then?”
You glance down at the literal scraps of cloth you’re barely clad in, filthy and salt-encrusted. If you were ever a merchant, you aren’t anymore, and likely never did a particularly impressive job at it. “I don’t...” you breathe in. Still so thirsty. “No. I’m not. I’m stranded here, and I need water.”
“Looks like you’ve found it, then,” the man says, still sitting beside the fire but looking poised to stand at any moment, carefully watching you. The world is a dangerous place even within civilization -- in the wild, any animal could be deadly and any human could be hunting more than game. That much you remember; raiders, pirates, and exiled mercenaries lurk in these untamed places, sniffing like wolves for those weak enough to prey on, rape, rob. You just hope that, from their demeanor, these three phyragians aren’t that sort. “Ya got a name?”
You lick your dry lips, slowly crouching at the edge of the stream but keeping your eye on the three scarlet-locked outlanders. Reaching into the water, you cup your hand and bring the clear liquid to your lips, sipping from it, swishing it in your mouth, then spitting to rid yourself of the sand and salt that coats your tongue and teeth. The second handful you swallow, letting out a hiss of satisfaction. “Not... one that I recall. I was on a ship, taken by the sea and whatever devils it brought with it. Taken with it was my past.”
“Your wayward vessel brought you far, kalt,” the flame-haired woman says softly. “You do not know where you’ve landed?”
You pause, considering, buying time to take another drink. You have no clue. “I do not.”
“This is a damned place,” says the woman with the tattoos, still not looking up at you, away from the campfire. “A new world, torn by strife. Friendless and free of refuge. A place where all peoples can come together in their hate and conflict. You, kalt...” she pauses, dragging her tongue over black lips to wet them, clear them from the grease of their last meal. “...Are in the underworld. That the gods have spat such a curse to find us in this place speaks to our wickedness. There is no more light, nor goodness, nor purpose for either. We are as animals at the tip of a butcher’s blade.”
You pause, swallow. The phyrai male glances to the dark-eyed woman, seeming unnerved for a moment before looking back to you. “We are far south, I’m afraid. A new island, uncharted, unmapped. New towns and outposts rise from sand and soil each day. I’m afraid your ship led you to a dark place.”
You nod. Worse than you’d feared, but not greatly so. A new land torn apart by civilization was an improvement on a land with no civilization whatsoever, and you had, at least, found three people that seemed friendly -- even if a stream separated you from them. You think for a moment, then finally speak. “I should not ask,” you say, your voice low and cautious and your eyes on the dark-eyed woman. “But do you have food?”
“We have some,” the first woman says cautiously. “Do you have anything to trade?’
1) “I have nothing but my blade, and the rags I’ve wrapped myself in.”
2) “I can serve how you see fit... perhaps I can assist you on your journey, wherever it goes.”
3) “Only my body... should one of you desire it.”
4) “Only my body... perhaps your camp could make use of me.”
5) Other (comment)
